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Annual Red Cross breakfast honors those who have saved lives

By Emily Gillespie, Columbian Breaking News Reporter
Published: March 4, 2016, 2:51pm
11 Photos
Dan Clark, senior vice president for Banner Bank, left, congratulates Jacob Keesee after he received the emergency response hero award at the 19th annual Real Heroes Breakfast on Friday morning at the Vancouver Hilton.
Dan Clark, senior vice president for Banner Bank, left, congratulates Jacob Keesee after he received the emergency response hero award at the 19th annual Real Heroes Breakfast on Friday morning at the Vancouver Hilton. (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian) Photo Gallery

Jacob Keesee follows a routine ­— he gets dressed, goes to school and afterward goes straight to the library down the road where he reads and uses his iPad until he’s picked up by his mom.

Keesee, a 21-year-old Vancouver resident, is on the autism spectrum. He said that the routine helps him to keep the events of his day predictable.

But on April 16, Keesee was walking along Mill Plain Boulevard when he saw a vehicle pull over. The driver was in distress.

The woman, Tracy Fisher, had gone into anaphylactic shock. She was having a hard time breathing and was seeing black spots. She asked to borrow Keesee’s cellphone, since hers was in the repair shop.

Other Winners

• John Sewell, Water Rescue Hero: Sewell, a retired man who lives blocks from Silver Lake in Cowlitz County, was on his boat on the lake when he saw another boat overturn. Sewell drove his boat to the scene and found a father swimming and his 5-year-old son face down in the water. Sewell pulled the boy into his boat and started CPR. After the father climbed into Sewell’s boat, they raced to a nearby motel where a nurse took over CPR and an ambulance met them. The boy was airlifted to Portland and was later reported in OK condition.

• David Bone, Professional Rescue Hero: While on patrol, Bone spotted a woman running into the street waving her hands. He followed her to a parking lot and learned from a dispatcher that there was a woman there in imminent childbirth. He got to the parked car in time to catch the baby. Bone, a paramedic prior to becoming a police officer, slipped the tangled umbilical cord off the baby’s neck. In appreciation, the arriving paramedic asked Bone to do the honor of cutting the umbilical cord of the healthy baby boy.

• Mark Hedgpeth, Fire Rescue Hero: It was about 10 p.m. on Nov. 1 when Hedgpeth glanced at his security monitor of his Longview home and saw a bright light. Looking closer, he saw that the duplex next door was on fire. Hedgpeth, who knew five children lived in the building, ran outside. While his wife called 911, Hedpeth went and stood below a second-floor window and caught one of the children thrown to him by his mother. Another man caught a second child. Then Hedgpeth went to help the ground-floor residents evacuate their three children through the window while the two adults upstairs jumped to safety.

• Tracee Godfrey, Workplace Rescue Hero: A teacher at Battle Ground High School, Godfrey was wrapping up her day when a frantic student came to the library and grabbed her, telling her about a student who had passed out and needed help. Godfrey ran to the classroom where she found the girl, and took the lead on CPR until paramedics arrived.

• Scott Van House and Kelli Howe, CPR Rescue Heroes: Van House and Howe were enjoying a family get-together on property along the Cowlitz River near Castle Rock when a driver pulled up and shouted that a little boy had fallen into the river upstream. Van House and Howe ran to the river’s edge where Van House spotted an odd object in the water. He ran in and swam to what he thought was a towel, but was actually the 5-year-old boy. The current pushed Van House and the boy into a shallow area near the water’s edge, where Howe met them and immediately began CPR.

— Emily Gillespie

For a moment, Keesee was torn. He told her he doesn’t loan his cellphone to strangers. He wanted to continue along his path, keeping with his routine, but something told him this woman needed help.

“It occurred to me that it wouldn’t be right,” he said.

Jacob called 911 and stayed with Fisher until help arrived. He even stood in the middle of the road waving when the ambulance turned down the wrong street.

Earning the Emergency Response Hero award, Keesee received a standing ovation at Friday’s American Red Cross Real Heroes Breakfast. The annual event, in its 19th year, honors those who stepped up to help someone in need.

“He kind of was my hero there,” Fisher said in a video interview played at the breakfast. “He knew that he was off of his routine, he wasn’t doing what he had been taught to do. But he had to make a decision about what was the right thing to do. That was really difficult for him, and he saved my life.”

Some of Friday’s honorees saved lives by performing CPR, some pulled drowning children from waterways, and a Ridgefield police officer delivered a baby.

Rescue stories

Vancouver residents Anson and Angela Service credited their award, the Wilderness Rescue Heroes award, to a nagging feeling in their gut.

The couple was heading to a hike in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in June 2015 when they spotted a dirt bike that looked like it had been set down. When the drove back from their hike, they saw the motorcycle again.

Anson Service said he didn’t think it looked too out of place, but a gut feeling made him get out and peer over a nearby cliff, where he saw a man at the edge of a creek. As it turned out, the man had been riding the bike on the remote logging road the day before, crashed into the trees and was catapulted into the ravine. Anson and Angela Service drove to get a cell signal and led paramedics to the man. A technical rescue team ended up performing the rescue.

“These stories are all about going out of your comfort zone and showing your deep down compassion to help someone,” said breakfast patron Aaron Dawson, president of Opsahl Dawson Certified Public Accountants. “It’s good to remember that we can help each other.”

Dawson said he’s sponsored a table for the past seven years because the Red Cross organization is indispensable.

Dennis Rugg, executive director of the Southwest Washington Chapter of the American Red Cross, said that the event gives him a good perspective on the work employees, board members and volunteers have done.

“It’s an opportunity for me to witness the whole organization come together to support the community and for the community to support the Red Cross,” he said.

The event is also a fundraiser for the relief organization, which assists each year with nearly 70,000 disasters throughout the United States.

“A lot of families are affected each and every day by disaster,” he said. “I always look to have more people involved and support a local cause that expends more on relief preparedness than we receive in donations.”

Those interested in volunteering, donating blood or making a monetary donation to the American Red Cross can get more information at www.redcross.org

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Columbian Breaking News Reporter